[Caitlin]

Now who is growing pearls in the US?
http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/st...2200674912.asp
Friday, May 12, 2006

— Time: 7:49:12 AM EST

Mussels stolen from Muskingum


By Brad Bauer


A man wearing diving equipment outside his Marietta motel room early Thursday morning caught the eye of a police officer and led to the discovery of more than 1,700 pounds of illegally harvested river mussels.

The mussels, some of which were federally protected endangered species, were taken for use in the production of cultured pearls, police said.

All of the mussels are believed to have been taken from the Muskingum River just below the Lowell dam.

Marietta Police Capt. Jeff Waite said shortly before 4:30 a.m. Ptl. Matt McCracken noticed a man wearing a wetsuit outside a room at the Budget Inn, 408 Pike St.

“He thought that was strange, but then the guy saw him and ducked down and another individual ran into the motel,” Waite said. “As soon as he got out of his cruiser he said all he could smell was river water — it was the mussels in the back of the truck.”

In all, three individuals — all from Tennessee — were arrested and charged with felony-level wildlife violations. The three are expected to be arraigned at 1 p.m. today in Marietta Municipal Court.

Charged out of the incident are Tim Rutherford, 33, of Eva, Tenn.; Kirk Benson, 34, of Camden, Tenn.; and Larry Black, 27, of Camden, Tenn.

State officials are calling the bust the largest of its kind in at least five years.

“It really depends on what is going on with the market value of cultured pearls,” said Susan Matthews, spokeswoman with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife. “When prices go up so do these kinds of attempts.”

The cultured pearl industry currently pays between $1 and $3 per pound for the creatures, Matthews said.

Police counted 2,386 mussels — weighing 1,753 pounds — in the bed of the pickup truck at the motel. After being weighed and sorted the mussels were returned to the river.

“We think most will survive,” Matthews said. “We had to hurry, but they seemed to be doing OK.”

Matthews said Ohio is a tempting site for mussel collectors because the creatures are protected here. In Tennessee, where mussels are not protected, many shell beds have been depleted.

“The resources just aren’t there anymore,” Matthews said. “So they look for other water areas were they can be found.”

The Muskingum River is home to 30 to 40 species of mussels. Prior to the system of locks and dams, the river was home to more than 60 species, Matthews said.

Today, several federally endangered mussels, including the fanshell, are struggling to continue in the Muskingum. Other endangered species include the Ohio pigtoe, the butterfly mussel, and the washboard mussel.

Poachers particularly covet the washboard, which grows to be as large as a pie plate with inch-thick shells.

Wildlife officials say mussels provide a natural gauge of water quality.

Mussels generally live 30 to 40 years — all in the same area of a river. Different species range in their tolerance to pollutants, Matthews said.

The mussel population, which at one point was continuous throughout the Muskingum, has since dwindled to within the first mile or two of each dam.

[Caitlin]

A followup
http://www.wtap.com/news/headlines/2794856.html

Bond Set for Alleged Poachers
WTAP News
Andrea Wilcox


Three Tennessee residents remain in the Washington County Jail Friday after poaching allegations.
Tim Rutheford, Kirk Benson and Larry Black appeared via video in Marietta Municipal Court for arraignment Friday afternoon.
if (self['plpm'] && plpm['Mid-Story Ad']) document.write('');if (self['plpm'] && plpm['Mid-Story Ad']){ document.write(plpm['Mid-Story Ad']);} else { if(self['plurp'] && plurp['97']){} else {document.write(''); } }if (self['plpm'] && plpm['Mid-Story Ad']) document.write('');They face five misdemeanor charges after allegedly taking nearly 2,400 mussels from the Muskingum River.
The judge set the bond at $20,000 for each case.
The three could likely face felony charges after a possible grand jury indictment and could end up paying more than $400,000 in restitution.
They are all scheduled to be back in court Monday.

[jshepherd]

Originally Posted by Caitlin Williams

Now who is growing pearls in the US?

Not for growing in the US - they were likely for the black market trade in Japan.

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Jeremy & Caitlin,

This kind of thing is going on all around the world, except maybe in Europe where we already killed almost all of our mussels off. The shells are used in making the beads for bead nucleated pearls. Now, why wont the Cultured Pearl Information Center simply educate consumers that roundness is actually not a quality factor and tell the famers to tissue nucleate?

Zeide

[Caitlin]

Wait a minute! Now I imagined that this thievery was to provide stock for growing more pearls. You know a bunch of young Bert Reynolds from Tennessee bootlegging stock for farms!!!

I am shocked and horrified that this kind of skullduggery is to provide NUCLEI for cultured pearls. This is not what I would call ecological- or good karma- for the young men, obviously, but for the industry either. Stolen shell sells for cheaper, then gets used in dishonest akoya production? Can someone explain what actually happens to this shell?

America still has over 300 kinds of freshwater mussels, though many are endangered. http://www.uvm.edu/~pass/tignor/mussels/disappear.htm This richness of mussel treasure is unequalled in any other part of the world, but it has declined tremendously. This country used to abound in vast quantities of freshwater pearls until practically every American family took to mussel hunting for pearls as a Sunday pastime. The market got glutted as the mussel beds were stripped and destroyed. Then the pearls fell in value and Americans turned to other pastimes.

Wouldn’t you just love it if American folks raised pearls in their ponds the way they have their own chicken flocks!

[Caitlin]

why wont the CulturedPearlInformationCenter simply educate consumers that roundness is actually not a quality factor and tell the famers to tissue nucleate?

The Cultured PearlInformationCenter? What is that? Where is it? And what are their email and street addresses?

They in China?

[jshepherd]

The Cultured Pearl Information Center LOL You would have a better chance convincing all the online sellers here to boycott Akoya!. The "center" is basically the advertising arm of the Japanese Akoya industry. They are one of the main reasons this Site is in existence today (Pearl-Guide), to get the truth out there.

[Caitlin]

Have an address handy? Do the Chinese have an equivalent? Tell us more about the slippery corruptness oozing from this miserable facade of an organization. Let’s start a really juicy thread!!!

I added a link to the post above about why the mussels are disappearing. It is written for school kids, but is educational for those who did not know.

simply educate consumers that roundness is actually not a quality factor

Zeide
Educate me. I haven’t seen much on that written down here, yet.
Before I even “met” you I, personally, spontaneously, decided roundness was less important to me than luster in CFW. Less than round is distasteful to some….. fine, the implants are a boon to them and their eye’s desire for round…… But I LIKE off-round as long as the luster is really pretty.

and tell the farmers to tissue nucleate?

I do like the idea of tissue nucleation. And I see a number of reasons to encourage farmers to do at least very small percent of their crops that way. I am sure the resultant pearls will appeal to people who will pay the added cost of living in the host for longer.

Natural pearl buffs, like you, embrace this kind of cultured pearl. As the range of tissue nucleated shellfish grows, a whole new market will “magically” appear. The natural pearl buffs have had little to buy in the last 100 years except reshuffling and scrambling over the old ones.
With tissue nucleation, the drought is over!
The first merchants to realize and serve that potential, will sit pretty. Mighty pretty.
Someone is going to be the first marine pearl farmer to do it and won't that make a splash?

You would have a better chance convincing all the online sellers here to boycott Akoya!

You have a way with words! Funny! Here is an analogy I have used before: I have noticed the growing market for upscale bread has barely touched the white bread industry; it just created NEW customers who hated white bread. Result? Even more bread being sold.

This is my principle: Both/And!

And it looks like everyone is agreed, that the slimy practices and lack of uniform standards need to be dealt with.

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Caitlin,

I agree that having the choice of both tissue and bead nucleated would be nice but in contrast to Mikibread, Wondermoto aesthetics seem to have a stranglehold on the market. It seems kind of strange given their prices why they would dominate public opinion, but the US$10,000-matchbook phenomenon does fund a rather impressive advertising budget.

Zeide

[jshepherd]

Originally Posted by Zeide Erskine

I agree that having the choice of both tissue and bead nucleated would be nice but in contrast to Mikibread, Wondermoto aesthetics seem to have a stranglehold on the market. It seems kind of strange given their prices why they would dominate public opinion, but the US$10,000-matchbook phenomenon does fund a rather impressive advertising budget.

Now that is the kind of post that wakes me up with a smile on an otherwise post-mother's day rush cloudy weekend. I think we should forward it to Devin Macnow, what do you say?

[Caitlin]

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/Genoa/mussel_recovery.html
too big an article to put here, but great stuff and pictures of endangered mussels. I am on this story now and think it ties into important things, like the thievery that started this thread. The story of the Great American Pearl Mussel.

I Googled Mussel shell industry and got a gaggle of info!

Here's more: http://www.fws.gov/Endangered/esb/2000/05-06/24-26.pdf
American mussels are among the most beautiful in the world and have the largest number of varieties in the world. What a treasure trove we sit upon. This article has a picture of aa "mussel shoal" on a peaceful river with trees.

[Caitlin]

Aesthetics.

Pearl aesthetics.

We have touched on this subject in many threads and many ways. I am thinking, that since I probably posted in most of them, I will go back and insert the word "Aesthetics" , so the thread will get picked up on a key word search. You have your baroque definition thread and the references to the preference for roundness in the Choice Goods thread.

I have a whole post about that, but didn't not want to keep sending the Choice Goods thread off topic. I think it is a very simple matter to pull these threads together, no pun intended. However, since this is my thread and I want it to explore every byway that comes up, I'll state my opinion here. I want folks to ponder the complexities of this precious gem.

They same people who like their akoyas round and shiny also buy everyday pearls and don't mind the off-round look for them.

The preference for roundness is built into the human brain. A perfect sphere does not occur in nature. But it is an archetype in every human mind.

Few archetypes are realized as perfectly in the human realm as the machine-made bead is. Not only does the machine produce a perfect shere, it can't produce any thing else! At least not yet. Maybe with fractal theory factored into the bead cutting machines, you could imitate a more natural look....ha ha ha....but I doubt it.

Round pearls are an expectation because few have seen anything else for a hundred years, except in the last decade or so with the growth of the CFWP and it satisfies something very fundamental in the human psyche.

But people also have a love of the more natural, complex shapes that use curves, instead of completed circles. The baroque, rococo, art nouveau and that is why aesthetic movements like this keep returning.

Pre-Raphaelite art has made a big comeback for several years now with the young folk. It used to be overlooked, but it speaks so loudly to the romantic in us. And I think as a very romantic art style, it does not speak to little rows of perfect spheres and mirror vapor polished finish, I think it speaks of natural shapes and gentle colors, especially of the European freshwater pearls. Or other pearls that have a similar feel.

A really romantic gift is a rope of CFW pearls. The other kind is a status statement, not a statement of the soul, and I believe pearls speak to the soul- and that is far more important than status.

[Caitlin]

Another article on the stolen mussels, with more comprehensive viewpoint.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll...0319/-1/NEWS12